Modern networks are responsible for interconnecting computing devices operable to exchange data. Data may be exchanged from circuit board to circuit board along a common backplane, for example, in a computer or server. In some implementations, data may be exchanged over long distances, for example, from a travel agent's computer to an airline server on a cloud network. Modern networks may employ a number of mediums including physical wires, radio frequency (RF) channels or fiber optics. Data exchanged between computing devices may include data packets including multiple bits. In some implementations, data may be transmitted one bit at a time, or serially. Such serial data transmissions, though containing digitized information encoded in logic levels, may be analog in nature, especially in high speed data transmissions.
Quantizer circuits determine a logic state in response to an analog signal level, receiving high speed serial data transmissions and transmitting logic signals that represent the serial input. For example, some quantizer circuits may receive a serial data transmission signal formed of a differential pair. On various clocked quantizers where the quantizer output represents the logic state of a quantizer input signal on a coincident active clock edge, the time between a signal state change on the quantizer clock input and the corresponding quantizer output state change may be referred to as “clock-to-q.”